Poems of Mercieca Caldon

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MERCIECA CALDON

FIRST FACES

Translated by the author

in the background: hardened mud,

green planets’ vapours, muted tempest,

a vegetal erection of oaks

your face reddened, hollowed out:

rest burns obscurely, uselessly, behind
your back

behold: your name is the Standing,

detaching self from shadow,

but keeping voice entangled in a ball of
black lips

ii.

chalk-powder floating blindly in the
twilight of a tent or straw-hut, mud,
reeds

octopus-juice stains from the turbid
depths

clasped in a limb-knot: not the chill,

not the timidity: beyond the face of
self, your profile drowns in a jungle of
snakes and deadly frogs

behold: your name is Black Flame, dark
rays piercing the mist, moon-child,

stone dripping in infants’ eyes

iii.

cave, hill tunnel,

end, ground and essence of every stellar
being

orphan room of candles and kettles

in burning lava, out of burning lava,

the eyes of self trim out your face

your hair and shoulders bear the gift

of desert-night manna

jahweh’s carving on the Sinai is
exchanged for the dream of your forbidden
face: whoever you were or might have been

iv.

dull and poor, unrefined, bare,

furrowed through and scratched all over:
behind you stand the remains of your
craft, the uneven and the unwanted,

the false, the wrong,

the defective, the approximate

no throw-aways: every brick hangs on top

of a lower one until there’s no end to

the breadth and width of brown-shadowed
favelas

on their foreground the blinking circles
of Olympus’ deities spin unrestrained:

your name is Indra and Iris

gold and embroidery, woollen
ramifications,

balancing bowls of dragons’ blood,

an overpowering circular enwrapment,

a purple monsoon of cloth, warmth,
shelter

no unrestrained exposure: a plaited

drowning, darkly, of hair within itself

your name’s an entanglement of plant,

rain and sun

vi.

long sheets are wrung and rolled into
ropes – roots wriggling down through red
hairy earth

a twisted crown-turban

a layered abundance clothing the

undulations of the self

torched corpses on the Ganges’ shores:

no night leaves my eyes unlit

vii.

green phosphorescence from a sack-cloth
sky, down to the sack-cloth depths

a wolves’ grey lair

and a dust-coating of rythmic, dripping,

entombing time

a viper’s hole, Venom’s your name,

or, possibly, Cure

viii.

ready for the killing

lifted on a milk-bed’s surge,

an ocean-bed roused up in lapping
frenzy,

the bounds of self undone only when,
flower-like, they’re disowned in wiltdom

moon and scythe joined into

a double-edged axe

after night and milk, a third immersion

of the self: incense shroud

ix.

window sill, threshold, shore:

your name is all beginning

churchyard, pavement, precinct,

a marble slab or polished hardstone lifts
you, dangles you at the void

no hand sustaining, sheltering, safe-
keeping

but a dread that propels and freezes,

stopping you from turning back

unbalancing till self is torn from self

becoming him, her and other

a whole self’s wealth in a sack-cloth

what an excess of clothing,

buttons and buckles holding back

everything from loosening off, messing
up, breaking out

emerging always from a larger, heavier,
darker self,

holding you fast but never facing you
straight,

standing behind or next to you

but never there alongside your being,

at times even opposing you

spreading his wrinkled self onto your
skin

soiling you with merits of unknown
origin and consequence

your name is His and thus, from

the very beginning, you’re baptised in
deception

xi.

unlocked enclosure: low walls,

gates, two-dozen-tiered mud-clod murals,

reedy windbreakers

the abode of self within them and higher:

one dash brings you to the edge of the
desert,

another dash to measure the million years

of your to-ing and fro-ing

Running is your name, unending cascade,

wherever you’ve been and still stand,

all through which you’ve passed and are

ever passing

xii.

window pane: a face, a street, shrubs,

a handle, a lock, a chrome frame

bordering the triangular glass

back-window: outdated upholstery, cube-
dimensions, a door unlockable no matter
how hard it’s slammed

a monsoon’s poured out on the road,

then it stops and a thousand

orphaned puddles are left behind,

children’s mirrors

xiii.

not a globular halo but a distending
fan,

extremities in self-searching approach,

completed umbrella

red planet, reddish glare

a blushing, shrinking sobriety,

buoyant bubble on a sea of milk

red rod sinking into

expectant clawed fingers,

masterfully in control

xiv.

holy, holy, holy: raised alongside

sovereigns, but, all smiles, you walk
off from amongst them,

cold-shouldering all

nothing unblended within, the sound of

self enmeshed in the general commotion,

your gaze fixed elsewhere,

skin-tone sipping star-shine, hair
darkened in blood-clot murk

all-being, encompassing all self,
catholic

xv.

the sun enlightening, engirdling a
turban,

oven-fired infernos lick the walls,

ablaze aloud, orange-fruit, topaz-stone

curved back in recoil, fire-ball,

wrapped, rolled-up sleevefolds spinning

then, in upward flaming spirals,
ascending

xvi.

throngs and swarming crowds surging forward,

reaching out, thrusting out

in praise, in prayer, in the streets,

incense columns fuming out, thundering

thudding of elephants, cows, crows

screened off, self-gathered, by a
flaming veil that dries up all this
hullabaloo,

softly enclosing self in self’s dark
vision,

in a coreless perimeter

silver bobbin suspended motionless

at the centre of you

xvii.

clay and soil: plaster, stucco,

woodwork, hair,

tablecloth dressed over as a sand-screen,

skin, cheeks, eyebrows, chin,

forehead, irises

form appearing in Nebucadnezzar’s dream,

subdued landscape: blossoms and

colours of exile’s gardens

xviii.

a gathering of men: hide-out, half-
darkness, twilight, erratic flickering
windowline now hidden, now revealed by
passers-by outside,

clanking metal on metal, rustling
clothing, sandals crunching sand

the diminutive room is no one’s
restraint: each one self-possessed,
hugging knees in self-embrace,

each one delineated in blinding

mountain snow,

suppressed shudders emerging

in warmth-eruptions from an unending

deep-seated blaze

xix.

a coronation of peaks: orbital circle,

planets and moons, rings around many a
saturn

boiling gold, flowing magma,

copper, bronz, lead and other

earth-juices,

hardened by scorching winds,

sulphuric vapours from

dragon’s face’s orifices

the self’s voice is a dispersal of

coloured smoke

rising ancient sun

over scattered earth’s faces

xx.

self’s beauty pinnacles in a pandemonium

of dancing clangour: chain ringlets,

carved bone, coins, bobbins, rings
running on leather-string necklaces,
feathers and paint,

bright white splotches,

a spider’s web of green thread

dead fire, snuffed out behind a

head-high screen: desert heaviness

the far-flung migrates over all expanses

adjoined, admixed with it all is self:
its name is Distance Unbreached,

length and breadth

of all that’s wide open within all being

Mercieca Caldon
Translated by the author